Maine Appeals
Maine Appeals

About

In this blog, we seek to discuss issues relating to appeals and appellate law in Maine, including the activities and decisions of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, the First Circuit Court of Appeals relevant to Maine, and other participants in the Maine appellate community.

February 08, 2018

Pot smoking hooligans, yes; rabid mongoose(geese?), no.
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This recent decision from the First Circuit reminds us of the series of insurance company commercials where the actors discuss unusual situations and whether they were covered, noting that the insurer “has seen a thing or two.”  Mu v. Omni Hotels Management Corp. In Mu, the panel (CJ Howard, Torruella and J. Barron, opnion by J. […]

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January 26, 2018

Sex plus and the First Circuit
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When you are a lesbian and co-workers call you the spectrum of nasty slurs for women generally and gay women, spit on you, shove you, and have the blood and brains of a suicide-attempt victim flung at you, among other things, is this discrimination because you are a woman, or because you are a gay […]

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January 23, 2018

Eves v. Le Page: The mysterious world of CTA1 en banc review
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In November 2016, the First Circuit issued a decision rejecting a civil rights claim filed by gubernatorial candidate Mark Eves against Governor LePage. Eves v. LePage, No. 16-1492 (1st Cir., 2016). Eves filed a motion for rehearing en banc. Now, over a year later, the Court granted that motion. What does it mean? The short answer […]

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January 18, 2018

Quill redux for Maine counsel
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In 1992, in Quill Corp. v. South Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, the Supreme Court ruled that a catalog retailer needs a physical presence in a state to require it to collect sales taxes. With the explosion of online sales, movement has been afoot to revisit this ruling.  When the all-important Oz of the Supreme Court, Justice […]

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January 12, 2018

The Supreme Court, Jay Leno, Ferris Bueller, and my nephew
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So let’s start the New Year right with a shout out to another blogger, my nephew, Connor Finch.  A recent graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and on his way to a job in DC, he’s spent time in between with the ACLU of Virginia.  He recently blogged about a case just argued […]

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December 20, 2017

End of year round up
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We are off for the holidays, and so end the year with a quick review of recent decisions from the Law Court and First Circuit.  Thanks to all for reading and for the feedback received in 2017.  A surprising number of folks seem interested in reading about Maine law – we had 400 readers on […]

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December 15, 2017

PUC Rules and Appellate Jurisdiction
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Looking at the summaries of oral arguments heard last week, one struck my eye, so I listened in. The merits of the dispute go to the legality of the Maine PUC’s net metering rule, an issue we won’t discuss. It’s a jurisdictional issue the Commission raised, with impact beyond this particular case, which I’d like […]

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December 13, 2017

The Law Court and human error
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There were a slew of decisions issued by the Law Court last Thursday.  Let’s take a peek and discuss a few. A smelly oops State of Maine v. Dubois Livestock, Inc., 2017 ME 223.  The holding is that when someone has a license issued by the DEP permit, at least under 38 M.R.S. s. 347-C […]

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December 08, 2017

Here are a couple recent rulings from the First Circuit that piqued our interest.
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Spanked  You can’t be compelled to arbitrate a claim if you never signed an agreement to arbitrate, or even knew it existed.  That’s the bottom line of a November 21 decision, Ouadani v. TF Final Mile LLC, No. 17-1583. Seem fairly logical to you?  Me too.  And to the Court (Judges Lynch and Selya, with our […]

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December 04, 2017

The RCV decision: a rebuttal to a Maine Bar Journal article
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This quarter’s Maine Bar Journal has an article by an attorney, Jeff Goldman, of counsel at Morgan, Lewis in Boston.  It’s called The Law Court’s Troubling Opinion of the Justices, and criticizes the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous advisory opinion on the Ranked Choice Voting (“RCV”) statute.  Contrary to the title and vocabulary of the […]

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